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According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) there are over 380,000 people living with leukemia in the United States. Each year roughly 24,500 people die from the disease and over 62,000 new cases are diagnosed. To improve treatment options for leukemia patients, the NCI recently awarded John DiPersio, MD, PhD of Washington University, St. Louis $6 million in research funding. The Professor of Medicine in Oncology at the university’s School of Medicine will use the seven years of funding to support three major areas of leukemia research in his lab. These include: improving the effectiveness of standard chemotherapy, preventing graft-versus-host disease, and developing new immunotherapies.

Most people don’t think of the flu as being life threatening. However, 36,000 American’s die because of the flu virus each year. Now, with the help of millions in NIH research funding, scientists at Rockefeller University have devised a strategy for improving existing flu vaccines. The new vaccines will better protect people against these ever-mutating viruses. And this new strategy might eliminate the need for annual flu shots, while at the same time saving thousands of lives.

The University of Minnesota is one of the top research universities globally. Year after year, research programs continue to grow as the University attracts top scientists, to enjoy the academic and cultural setting that is offered on the Twin Cities Campus.

UC Davis has a long history of ground breaking stem cell research. Possible therapies studied range from advanced wound healing, treating HIV, and reduced vision loss to the regeneration of bone in otherwise non-healing fractures. Now The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has awarded UC Davis Medical Center scientists nearly $8 million in research funding to launch a special clinical trials program in Sacramento. The goal of the grant is to accelerate the development and delivery of stem cell therapies in human patients.

UC Davis Medical Center’s Mind Institute was one of five institutes in the nation to win the NIH’s Autism Centers of Excellence Award (ACE). The $12 million, five year grant, will be used for the creation of the “Center for the Development of Phenotype-based Treatments of Autism Spectrum Disorder.” This new center will take a personalize approach to addressing autism spectrum disorder (ASD) treatment based on a child’s behavioral and biological characteristics. The goal will be to identify and tailor treatments that improve the quality of life for those with ASD.

Oregon State University recently acquired a new, customized $1.6 million ambient-pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy system (AP-XPS). The AP-XPS is the first instrument of its kind in the United States to incorporate an ambient-pressure scanning tunneling microscope, or AP-STM, which enables imaging of surfaces with atomic resolution. This high-tech research instrument will make the surface characterization laboratory at OSU’s College of Engineering a major resource for scientists throughout the Pacific Northwest.

About 1 in every 100 babies born have a congenital heart defect (CHD), a structural defect of the heart. In fact, CHDs are the most common types of birth defect. In one quarter of the cases the condition is serious enough to require surgery or other procedures within the first year of life. Despite the frequency, the cause of most congenital heart defects remains a mystery. And without knowing the cause, scientists are not been able to find a way of preventing these defects.

Between 3 to 20 percent of women with breast cancer will develop another primary cancer tumor in the opposite breast within ten years of the first diagnosis. Though previous studies have identified some environmental, genetic, and treatment-related risk factors for contralateral breast cancer, scientists still don’t fully understand what causes these second primary cancers.

Two researchers in UC San Diego’s Division of Biological Sciences were selected as Pew biomedical scholars for 2017. Microbiologist, Rachel Dutton Ph.D. and physicist, Elizabeth Villa, Ph.D. were each awarded flexible funding that may be used at their discretion for personnel, lab equipment, supplies, or travel directly related to their research. Dutton and Villa were selected this as part of this year’s group of 22 exceptional early-career researchers who will receive support for their foundational research.

In March, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) approved a $3.7 million, five-year grant to extend Dr. Eric Chow’s research into improving treatment of cardiovascular risk factors in childhood cancer survivors. Dr. Chow is a clinical researcher, epidemiologist, and pediatric oncologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. This is one of two research grants to be awarded to Dr. Chow by the National Cancer Institute. The NCI also chose to extend Dr. Chow’s study of the long-term efficacy of a medication meant to minimize or prevent heart injury in pediatric patients going through chemotherapy. This $2.7 million in research funding will allow for four more years of studies regarding the use of dexrazoxane in pediatric cancer patients.